Toyota Mirai - the fuel cell vehicle goes into production

Today Toyota announced their fuel cell vehicle ready for prime time. Caveat: it requires the availability of hydrogen refuelling stations.
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Ever since reading Jeremy Rifkin The Hydrogen Economy (2002), I've been waiting for the emergence of the vision of a hydrogen fuelled future. "Mirai" is Japanese for "the future." So Toyota made the commitment of R&D and yen to make that a reality. FYI, that vision includes hydrogen refuelling at home and the car as power station for electricity at home. I believe that means solar pv and hydrogen for energy storage. Interesting to note that they're working with the DOE to also create the infrastructure for hydrogen refuelling everywhere, starting in Boston, New York and the Northeast corridor. I'll believe when I see one down the road, but its nice to see the fuel cell vehicle finally arrive as a possibility. I won' be giving up my eBike anytime soon.

whatta waste. i thought that lecture by one of the Tesla founders really punched a hole in the hydrogen economy.

Today if faced with a choice of buying into the Tesla versus Toyota vision of the future, yea, I'd buy a Tesla. But its more than a question of vehicle. Its about energy storage for renewables - solar & wind and so forth - for the grid, homes, business & industry. I like that fuel cell research by the majors has matured to this point of introduction into the marketplace. The H2USA consortium is growing by leaps. And there is a lot of R&D dollars going into direct Solar-PV to hydrogen technology. These are all glimmers of a carbon-free energy future. And that should be the concern of everyone. Best!

i would never buy a Tesla. it is made for rich people. i am more interested in affordable solutions and hydrogen will never be one of them plus it is energy inefficient, almost as much as using gasoline. using CNG is much better than hydrogen but it doesn't have that mysterious appeal that hydrogen does since most people do not understand thermo.

New tech is always for those who can well afford it, to begin with, until economies of scale grow and production costs are lowered so that the average Joe on the street can also afford it. Always has been, always will be. Both the Tesla vision and the Toyota vision of the future account for getting there and have set a path there, not that they have arrived. And as the science, technology and engineering advances, there are numerous aligned developments. Tesla set a new standard for the manufacture of vehicles and all the majors wanting a place need to compete. Toyota just did. I can not view these developments, or construe them, in a negative light, nor will.

I'm pretty confident all the Hydrogen nonsense is just a scam by the petroleum industry to ensure petroleum dependence is continued as long as possible.

Hydrogen as a fuel doesn't thermodynamically make sense (which I think most people know, but crooked lobbyists continue to sucker ignorant politicians into funding it.)

I haven't done the math, but I suspect to support a meaningful volume of compressed hydrogen using solar PV would be impractical for any filling station just due to the size. To say that hydrogen will never be an affordable solution though is just silly, most technologies are expensive at first and only become affordable after time. Thermodynamic efficiency is not really a big consideration, at least not as much as infrastructure availability, cost, range, time to refuel, etc. If it were, nobody would use gasoline.

What does not make sense is continued support for the petroleum industry and its vast infrastructure for the production and transport of fuels. I see both the Tesla and Toyota efforts as predictors of a better future. All such arguments against are way, way too premature. When you factor in highly distributed energy & storage of the hydrogen variety, there is VAST reduction of the entire train of production & transport. The thermodynamic modelling discounting you allude to is utter nonsense when accounting for the whole picture. And the fact of current developments with H2USA, Toyota and other consortium members lends credence to this vision of a possible carbon-free future.

All that time , money, research, and effort to develop a new technology vehicle,.....
....and then they let a blind crack addict design the front end !!....... WTF ?

they actually have designers develop the front appearance so that users, purchasers in this case, react to the front end as though it is a 'face' such as would appear on a human with the attributes they are trying to use to influence the purchase.

so the car looks 'aggressive' and that appeals to the purchaser in subliminal ways. the same is true for how they sell new technology. make it appear to be the 'final solution' so that the purchaser thinks he is buying the very latest most advanced technology. many people think of fuel cells as advanced technology. none of them have any idea of the ancient history behind fuel cells.

even fewer people are aware of the relatively high overall efficiency of using CNG either. there are now liquid natural gas service stations on the major highways across the country and more and more big semi trailer trucks are using LNG as the power source for class 13 big rigs. especially in Ca where the emission rules are so strict.

LNG is still in the carbon economy and some saying that with fracking, its worse than the tar-sands. Electric motors combined with renewable energy sources like solar & wind give us a more-or-less carbon free economy. The obvious drawback is the energy-storage conundrum, of which Tesla, with its gigawatt factory, and Toyota with its fuel-cell, hydrogen refueling tech are working on assiduously, so as to remove energy storage as the limiting factor. Along with a LOT of others, including the DOE. For all I know, we'll end up with uranium hydride battery as the most robust solution 10 years from now. The announcement of the Mirai by Toyota is a game-on challenge that every automotive player I'm sure are taking to heart in their executive suite. As should we mere mortals here in ES-land.

the hydrogen you think is the solution is delivered by stripping the hydrogen from a methane molecule.

I would be impressed it if was a fuel cell capable of stripping long chain hydrocarbons like natural gas or ethanol . I don't get how they came to a proper business conclusion that compressed raw hydrogen was the best answer. Even just hydrogen embrittlement alone is enough to make it a bad long term choice of energy storage! So what will the pressurized tanks have, a one or two year lifespan? Unless they are withholding that the fuel cells run from natural gas, this seems like the biggest automotive blunder I've seen.

dnmun said:

the hydrogen you think is the solution is delivered by stripping the hydrogen from a methane molecule.

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No, stripping methane of its hydrogen is only one way to fuel a fuel-cell. The Mirai uses stored hydrogen and the H2USA consortium are all about a build out of the necessary infrastructure. A grand vision, but its building momentum.

johnrobholmes said:

I don't get how they came to a proper business conclusion that compressed raw hydrogen was the best answer. Even just hydrogen embrittlement alone is enough to make it a bad long term choice of energy storage!

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Because it is and the R&D supports it. The tanks are all carbon-fiber and embrittlement is not the issue you think it might be. Ford has had a fleet of hydrogen fueled vehicles in service now for a while.. http://corporate.ford.com/microsite...11-12/environment-products-plan-migration-fcv, so its not just Toyota. They're making steady progress working the kinks out.

JackB said:

The future is not having people haul around 3,000 lbs of vehicle to move 200 lbs of person.
In short, the future is not about cars. Unless you are a car company.

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I agree. I'm not giving up my eBike. But I live in the urban core of a liveable, walkable city and so it works for me best. Not so many, many people. Its a question of ramping up big time towards a carbon-free economy, in every way possible.

The future is not having people haul around 3,000 lbs of vehicle to move 200 lbs of person.
In short, the future is not about cars. Unless you are a car company.

arkmundi said:

dnmun said:

the hydrogen you think is the solution is delivered by stripping the hydrogen from a methane molecule.

Click to expand...

No, stripping methane of its hydrogen is only one way to fuel a fuel-cell. The Mirai uses stored hydrogen and the H2USA consortium are all about a build out of the necessary infrastructure. A grand vision, but its building momentum.

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Educate yourself a bit. This is the thermodynamic farce of H2, it's produced by cracking higher energy petro-chem feed stocks (typically CH4), using high pressure steam jets.

"Currently, the majority of hydrogen (∼95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming or partial oxidation of methane and coal gasification with only a small quantity by other routes such as biomass gasification or electrolysis of water.[15]"

It's made by cracking Methane rather than through electrolysis, because its such a lossy expensive inefficient process to crack water for H2.

Then, once your Methane has wasted a bunch of energy dumping it's Carbon into the atmosphere to make the H2 that you've already spent many times the electricty to get that H2 than a battery electric car could have used to travel further than the H2 can take you, you're still not finished wasting energy, because the fuel cell itself is also substantially lossy as well.

Hydrogen really doesn't make sense for a vehicle fuel, with the exception of lighter than air vehicles.

liveforphysics said:

"Currently, the majority of hydrogen (∼95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming or partial oxidation of methane and coal gasification with only a small quantity by other routes such as biomass gasification or electrolysis of water.[15]"

It's made by cracking Methane rather than through electrolysis, because its such a lossy expensive inefficient process to crack water for H2.....

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Yes, I'm aware. But as I've pointed out, there are a LOT of people, including the DOE and majors in vehicle manufacture that are working on more advanced tech for the distributed production of hydrogen. Its why I say its too premature to naysay these developments. What I expect is a buid-out of the the Atlantic seabed offshore wind potential, which is greater than 4 times the total current grid capacity in the USA, all located in the most heavily populated and trafficked region of the country. So direct wind to hydrogen and a reconfiguration of the entire grid with hydrogen as the primary storage mechanism. Hence hydrogen refueling becomes simplistic.

arkmundi said:

liveforphysics said:

"Currently, the majority of hydrogen (∼95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming or partial oxidation of methane and coal gasification with only a small quantity by other routes such as biomass gasification or electrolysis of water.[15]"

It's made by cracking Methane rather than through electrolysis, because its such a lossy expensive inefficient process to crack water for H2.....

Click to expand...

Yes, I'm aware. But as I've pointed out, there are a LOT of people, including the DOE and majors in vehicle manufacture that are working on more advanced tech for the distributed production of hydrogen.

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People work on whatever someone pays them to do. I know two guys getting paid to work with Lithium air batteries, despite nobody at the facility thinking it makes any sense or having a hope for practical safe functionality, it only takes throwing cash at something to get teams of people to show up each day somewhere and work on it.

dnmun said:

they actually have designers develop the front appearance so that users, purchasers in this case, react to the front end as though it is a 'face' such as would appear on a human with the attributes they are trying to use to influence the purchase.
so the car looks 'aggressive' and that appeals to the purchaser in subliminal ways..

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Well, to me,... they screwed up again. !
Like i said, they should dope test that designer !
The Japanese have never been good at car aesthetics ( or names ) .
Its all about style, proportions, and balance...that thing is like a hammerhead shark ! ..phuk ugly to me.
They need to hire an Italian !
..and Hydrogen ??...oh please,..nice in theory, but it is not going to happen !
If a simple change to something cheap and readily available at your door like CNG, cannot get a foothold,... what chance for H2 !

I'd love to see a direct conversion fuel cell that takes petrol and converts it to electricity Never going to happen though.

I always look at the LCD display on the Vectrix with the spot for the fuel cell (I think it was a methanol fuel cell that was planned) and wonder what could have been if they hadn't gone bankrupt (why did they use NiMh batteries with an equalisation routine that killed them?!

hey if i built them, they would all look like a Lotus.

but it really is true that they try to catch that hostile face, aggressive visage on the front end because people who drive cars want that front end to intimidate, to threaten other cars in its way.

the entire thing about these guys with penis anxiety so they drive these big trucks with huge tires and chrome naked girl outlines for bumper stickers. these are the guys who throw the longnecks out the window at you as they go by at full speed. squealing like pigs out the window of their mega pickup.

there is hi pressure natural gas almost everywhere across the entire US. there is huge network of hi pressure gas pipelines and they are already pumped up to high pressure so the 3k psi needed for the storage tank does not require much more compression when taken directly from the pipeline. so CNG at truck stops close to hi pressure gas pipelines is almost a slam dunk.

but you can get a hi pressure compressor to use to pump up gas supplied to the residence to fill the CNG car. Honda would sell them with the car but if there were more CNG cars there would be more compressor suppliers and lower prices for the compressor, which is a high cost item.

instead of allowing the ICE manufacturers continuing to sell cars that burn gas in different flavors to fit the marketing structure they should be forced to build a 800kg vehicle with clean aero and a 14kWh battery pack and a small but effective 12kW AC induction motor from aluminum tubing and carbon fiber capable of carrying 2 passengers and with built in 6kW chargers.

then tax them for all of the gas breathing junkers they build and tax the fire sucking monsters at every level from sales to yearly registration just like the europeans after the war.

liveforphysics said:

I'm pretty confident all the Hydrogen nonsense is just a scam by the petroleum industry to ensure petroleum dependence is continued as long as possible.

Hydrogen as a fuel doesn't thermodynamically make sense (which I think most people know, but crooked lobbyists continue to sucker ignorant politicians into funding it.)

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I cannot believe my own fingers as I type this!

I agree with you!!

Let's hurry up and get readily available safe long life batteries to nice round numbers and end the nonsense. ie $100/kwh, 10kw/kg, 1kwh/kg . That's sure to happen by 2025, so I'll add one difficult wishlist item, that single cells are 80V nominal with a discharge curve 85V-75V that is unaffected by temperature or load so voltage gives an accurate SOC.

Don,t forget the 10C charge rate ability though John.
It would be a killer to have all that battery capacity but be stuck with low charge rates !

if there is not a system of chargers capable of delivering the 10C to a 20kWh battery then the entire presumption of that requirement is in doubt.

any charging solution has to be ubiquitous so imo it is gonna be based on distributed charging spots available at the curb or driveway or rental spots so that people can plug in their car wherever they are located, not driving 20 miles to reach the only available charger.

so that means service at the curb from a local residence service. maybe there could be a tax incentive for people to install a charging spot like there was for solar panels and other energy saving investments. 30A240V service at the curb would be no increase in the service for any residence built in the last 80 years almost.

maybe regulation and authentication of the power deliveries will be handled through an extensive charging marketplace where you would pay for the charge through a third person or agency. this can all be done now even.